Dollars for Docs
- Logo
Dollars for Docs shows details of financial payments from pharmaceutical companies to doctors in the US
- URL
- https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
- Keywords
- US, corporate interests, health, doctors, propublica, pharmaceuticals, medical
- Project Current Phase
- Released
- Project Start Date
- 2010
- Launch Date
- 2010
- Most Recent Update
- 2015
- Update Frequency
- N/A
- Thematic Focus
- Health
- Issue addressed
- Tracking financial influence
- Geographic Focus
- US
Experience
How does a user interact with and navigate the project?
- Narrative
- Yes
- Query
- Yes
- Geographic Map
- Timelines
- Lists
- Yes
- Network Visualisation
- Other Visualisation
- Raw Data
Description
Summary of the project and its approach
Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are now required by law to release details of their payments to a variety of doctors and U.S. teaching hospitals for promotional talks, research and consulting, among other categories. ProPublica are turning this information into an easy-to-use database, in website and app form, so that patients can quickly discover the payments made to their doctor.
- Approach (How?)
- ProPublica use details of payments disclosed under the under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and have created from them a series of databases to allow patients to see whether their doctor receives funds from drug and medical device companies. Historic data is archived and remains available.
- Language
- English
- Commissioner
- ProPublica
- Publisher
- ProPublica (US)
- Partners
- Formerly in cooperation with Pharmashine
Impact
Indicators of reach and impact of the project
- Target Audience
- Online Audience Reached
- International
- No ( followers)
- Publisher's Twitter Followers
- 409K
- Online Rank
- Google: Alexa: OSE Domain Authority Rank: 84/100 Marketing Grader Rank: 80/100 ()
- Online Rank (Publisher)
- Google: 7 Alexa: 342,430
- News Source
- Very High
- Offline Audience Reached
- National
- Outcome
- Transparency of the sector has led to a dramatic scaling back of payments by drug and medical device companies to doctors https://www.propublica.org/article/as-full-disclosure-nears-doctors-pay-for-drug-talks-plummets
- Last updated
- 22/10/2015
- Attempts against the project
- N/A /
Technology
What tools and code were used to create the project?
- Tech Best Practices:
- Code Repository
- Tool
- Database
- Frontend
- Backend
- Data Format
- Data Standard
- Technical Documentation URL
- Technical Architecture Documentation
- Schema Documentation
- Design Documentation
- API Documentation
Data Sources
- Data Sources
Team
Team size and expertise
- Team Size
- Medium
- Team Experience
- Research
- Dedicated
- Data Science
- Dedicated
- Engineering
- Some
- Design
- Dedicated
Project Methodology
What strategies were in place for managing the project?
- Project Methodology
- Agile
- Open Source
- No
- Open Data
- No
- Budget
- N/A
- Contracting
- No
- Risk Planning
- No planning
- Sustainability Planning
- No planning
Documented Practices
Documentation about project practices
: https://www.propublica.org/article/about-the-dollars-for-docs-data
- Organise / Model Data
- https://www.propublica.org/article/about-the-dollars-for-docs-data
Practices
How projects handle different aspects of data management
- Data Modeling
- List
- Ethical Collection
- No guidelines
- Ethical Storage
- N/A
- Data Collection
- External Sources
- Data Collection
- Data Verification
- Corroborated
- Data Cleaning
- Manual
- Data Analysis
- Classification / Tagging / Categories / Linking
- Data Description
- Basic
- Data Licensing
- Restricted
- Ethical Publishing
- Cited Sources
- Ethical Publishing
- Data Publishing Mode
- Scrapable